5 Important Elements of Public Speaking

Are you fascinated by how people can address a large set of audience and make such a good impact on them? Are you looking for improving yourself at public speaking? Is there an important lecture you need to deliver and you have no idea how to do that efficiently? Do you want to know how to be effective and efficient at this art?

If yes, you must understand some important elements of public speaking which can obviously make a great difference on how you deliver your words to the audience.  Here are 5 important elements of public speaking.

1. Modulation 

This word my sound scary but it is really simple. Modulation refer to changing the expressions of your voice according to different contexts. For example, when you’re speaking about something amazing, your voice should have that amazed feeling in it. When you’re speaking about something sad, your voice should make it seem like you’re sad.

That’s what modulation is. Changing the tone and volume of your voice according to different contexts. If you’re wondering how this helps to make your speech better, modulation not only makes it a more interesting speech but also keeps the attention of your audience. In simple words, modulation prevents your audience from getting bored and losing their concentration in what you’re saying.

2. Pause 

Punctuation marks matter even when you speak. Full stop, comma, semi colon – everything exists in oral language. And a good speaker always make sure that he/she takes care of the punctuation marks and delivers them in the speech.

Having frequent and planned pauses can help your audience grasp the content of your speech in a better way. Also, it helps in modulation whose important has already been explained in the first point.

3. Speed or Words per minutes

This is a lesson I learnt the hard way. I speak really fast naturally and not everyone is able to understand what I speak because of the speed. I have had sessions where I spoke for 10 minutes and no one understood even a word. I learnt that way.

But you can learn it the easy way while avoiding the embarrassing situations where your audience tell you about this flaw. Make sure you are not too slow or not too fast while you speak. Word per minutes must be moderated. Take help of a friend to master this thing.

4. Confidence 

Not everyone is confident when he/she goes on stage and has to talk to hundreds of people. But this nervousness must not be visible when you’re on stage. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice is the only thing that can make this possible.

When I am on stage I literally shiver because of nervousness but still I get complimented for my confidence. Why? Because that’s something I practiced for a long long time. Stand in front of the mirror and talk to yourself, repeat the speech and analyse where you go wrong and improve.

Being really confident isn’t necessary. Showing that you’re confident is.

5. Eye contact

This reminds me of a day when my entire batch was in auditorium and one of my batchmates was addressing the crowd. She was literally reading from the paper and speaking. It wasn’t even once that she looked up and saw the crowd. That was a big folly.

When you’re standing on stage and speaking, you’re supposed to address the crowd. Maintain eye contact with them. Of course you don’t need to look at everyone but you must be looking at the crowd, even if you’re supposed to read from a paper and speak.

When you’re reading, look at the crowd during the pauses. Punctuation marks are there for a reason, remember!

These are the five things which I think are very essential for effective public speaking. Next time you go on stage, keep them in mind and I am sure you would feel the difference.